What's Been Going On?

I'll tell you what's been going on...

Nothing major, but a lot of little things. First of all, I think Parker has a drinking problem. Are there "AA" meetings for toddlers?


As most of you know, I'm not too fond of cooking. It takes too much time and it stresses me out. Well, as most of you ALSO know, I love the Chicken Thai pizza from California Pizza Kitchen. So when I found a recipe on the internet for Chicken Thai pizza, I had a decision to make. I decided that my love for Chicken Thai pizza overwhelmed my dislike for cooking and I tried it. It was so yummy! If anyone wants the recipe, let me know.


The pizza was only the start of my fun night (No, I don't mean it that way!)...I had the honor of babysitting Dexter! He is so stinkin' cute and he is such a good baby! When Curtis and Shandy came over to pick him up, Shandy said "How was he?" and then laughed and said "I can't believe I'm old enough to ask that question!" Yes, that's right, Curtis and Shandy are grown ups now and I'll bet they get a spot at the grown-ups table at Thanksgiving!
This is a dumb picture of me because I was talking, but Dexter is cute!


Remember how I said I don't like to cook? Well, here is a great reason why: Carson cries when I force him to eat my cooking! It was just corn chowder, not something gross like seafood!


The next night Carson and Parker were chasing each other around the house. As we all know, my boys are totally accident prone, and Parker tripped and fell-hiting his head on the corner of the kitchen wall. I am really surprised that his head didn't split wide open! He wasn't too happy to say the least...


So that's my week, in a nut shell. What has everybody else been doing? Some people haven't had blog updates for awhile and I'm gettin' ready to open a can of whoop-A on ya'll!

Tee-Ball Bloopers

Tonight Carson had his 3rd Tee-Ball game. As always, they are so fun to watch because kids will be kids no matter where they are. Sam was the photographer tonight and he caught some fun bloopers:

Check out the kid laying down in the background


No matter what position the outfielders were playing, they ALL ran for the ball, even if it was a foul. More than once I noticed all the players were off chasing a ball and nobody was left on the field except the coach! Here is an example of this "clumping" effect.


Two kids on third base and two kids guarding third base??


Another kid laying down...


The coach from the opposing team was helping one of his kids with his batting technique. The kid swung with all his might and whacked the coach in the kneecap with his metal bat. I love how his kids are laughing at him!


It's hard to tell from this picture, but this little guy swung his bat, missed the ball, and he did a complete 360 degree turn. Maybe he thought he could hit the ball eventually, if he just kept turning and holding that bat!


No blooper here, just a cute picture of Carson!


And my favorite moments that weren't captured on film:
One kid made it to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base, but instead of running home, he ran to his mom on the sidelines and gave her a hug.

Carson made it to 1st and 2nd and he was so excited he kept running past the kid who was already on 3rd and ran home!

My all time favorite quote of the night:
One of the mom's was sitting on the sidelines with her son, who was playing with a baseball. One of the balls from the Tee-Ball game was randomly thrown, and it rolled next to this boy. The mom looked down and said in a really confused tone: "why do you have two balls?" I about died right then and there!

Is It Too Early?

Is it too early to show you Parker's Halloween costume? Well, I'm showing you anyway!

I love Old Navy's costumes. I wish they had bigger sizes for Carson, but kids would probably beat Carson up if he walked around the neighborhood like this!





I was laughing so hard when I took these pictures I had tears rolling down my face!

T-Ball

Tonight was Carson's first T-Ball game! In fact, it was his first time ever playing the game! Right before we left I tried to explain to him about running to 1st base instead of 3rd. That was the extent of his training. As we were getting in the van to head to his game I handed him his mitt and told him to put it on. He tried for about a 1/2 second to get it on, gave up, and threw his mitt on the garage floor. Big tears started rolling down his cheeks and he said he didn't want to play because "what if I'm no good?". It was pretty dramatic.

I did what any loving, compassionate, and sympathetic mother would do: I told him to wipe those tears away and get that glove on because he WAS going to play in the 8 games I signed him up for! Actually, I was really nice...I promise! I told him it didn't matter how good he was, I just wanted him to experience the sport and have fun! Guess what finally calmed him down? He said a prayer! That's my boy!

Well, he had a BLAST! As soon as he walked on the field he was smiling. It was AWESOME! In fact, I was smiling too. I love seeing little 4 and 5 year olds playing T-Ball.

My favorite bloopers from the team:
Hitting the ball and just standing there.
Hitting the ball and running to 1st base while holding the bat the whole time.
Hitting the ball and going back to the sidelines and sitting down.
Making it to 1st base and sitting down on the base.
Hitting the ball right into a kid's chest, then the kid cries for 15 minutes and everybody hugs him.
One boy was ticked about something and he was on 3rd base. When it was time for him to run home he pouted and took BABY steps all the way home.
Every time Carson got the ball in the outfield, he would WALK the ball over to the 1st baseman instead of throwing it there.
Watching several ball players during the game holding themselves down "there" because they had to go potty!

Seriously, those were only a FEW of the funny things that happened. Ya'll should come to a game if you can because it's non-stop entertainment. He plays every Tuesday and Thursday at either 4:30pm or 5:30pm until October 17th. Call me if you want to come and I'll let you know where we'll be.

Enjoy some shots from tonight.

Pish Posh...Applesauce

I know that is a random title for this posting, but that is because all my events this weekend were just....random!

The weekend started with Carson trying to take some pictures of himself with Parker and I in the frame as well. I LOVE this picture. It has a whole new meaning to the phrase "Four eyes!!!".



Then, this picture may look a lot like the one from January or February, but I promise it's new (remember the previous photo shows the towing guy's 'crack'?). Well, we have had the Bonneville parked in our garage for several months and now we are ready to fix 'er up again so we can finally be a two-car family. We'll find out tomorrow how much it's gonna cost us ...*gulp*! By the way, notice my beautiful Rose of Sharon hedges? Nice!



Since the Bonneville was out of the garage, Sam decided to do some serious cleaning in there. I love it! I can park the van right in the middle of the garage now, which is really handy, especially if you know me and my parking abilities....sketchy, to say the least!



On Saturday we went to a baby shower for Laurel King, whose family happens to be one of the coolest families on the planet! Laurel's maiden name is 'Hansen'. The Hansen's sort of helped raise Sam...especially when Sam burnt his house down when he was 15 because he lived with their family for several months while his house was being rebuilt. I pretty much consider them my in-laws. In fact, Sam and I met because of the Hansens! Natalie Peton (maiden name was Hansen) and her husband, Neal, set us up on a blind date. My wedding reception was in their backyard!
Anyways, here is part of this extremely awesome family:
Angie(she is holding her niece, Ginnie), Ginger is standing above Angie, Cami (she married Ryan Hansen), Laurel (she is pregnant with her first baby), Lynda Hansen (mom), and Lindsey.
Funny story about Laurel: She always joked that she wanted to marry Sam so when I married him, she gave us a sympathy card for our wedding instead of a congrats card!!! They are so funny!



Last but not least: Tonight we had dinner at my parents with Nalani & Jed, Cody & Karena, and Curtis & Shandy. We all have dinner once a month and we call it the "cousins dinner". It's something I look forward to every month because my family is so much fun to hang out with. Of course we all fought over who got to hold Dexter. Here is the only picture I took tonight (shocking, I know!) of Carson holding Dex.



Carson starts T-Ball this week, so expect some pretty sweet action shots of that on Tuesday. It should be funny because he's never played any sports, let's all say a prayer for him that he will run to 1st base instead of 3rd!!!

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree...

It's a well known fact that Sam sort of did his own thing when he was young, without much adult supervision. All his old neighbors tell me it's a miracle that he's alive today because every time they looked out their window there would be little Sammy Sweet wandering the neighborhood in his diaper or laying in the gutter--for fun! Sam may need to clarify here, but I think he was even hit by a car or two.

Today is rained and poured so hard that our street gutters became a river. Sam got really excited when he saw it and said "Hey Carson! Go play in the gutters, that's what I used to do!" Of course, Carson didn't ask twice, he was out there playing and having the time of his life. I couldn't help but think to myself: You know you're a redneck when your "swimming pool" is the nasty brown gutter water on a rainy day!

Brothers

Before I had Parker, I was worried about Carson and how he would react to having a sibling. It's been two years now and I must admit, Carson is a great big brother. He and Parker are such good friends and they play together really well...most of the time. I was looking at some pictures from my camera and thought I'd share some "brother" moments over the past few months:

Feeding ducks at Gardner Village



Playing in the backyard


Playing in a cave at the dinosaur museum


The other day I found this scene: Carson was teaching Parker how to "properly" wash his hands!


I've put this on the blog before, but I really like it: Parker had a hard time going to sleep the other night. Here is how he finally drifted into his peaceful slumber...


And finally-here are the boys ready for church!

Curtis and Shandy's Baby

Curtis and Shandy have updated their blog, so check it out if you want to see more handsome pictures of Dexter Glenn Clark.

He was born on September 7, 2006 at 3:17pm. He weighed in at 9 pounds and he is 20 inches long. Seriously, he is extremely cute!. Shandy and Curtis surprised me by letting me stay in the delivery room while Dexter was born. It was so awesome! Here are a few pictures from the first day...





Congratulations Curtis and Shandy!

The Experiment

Since I promised Curtis and Shandy that I wouldn't put pictures of their baby on my blog until they have, I needed to come up with something blog-worthy...

Tonight I asked Carson what he wanted to do. He responded "How about an experiment?" So that is what we did. Since I'm not a scientist and not very creative, I used an idea that I saw on the internet: Mixing Diet Coke with Mint Mentos. It proved to be a fun experiment.

Here we are filling up the paper tube with mentos


Nice action shot. We only used 8 Mentos, we learned our lesson. By the 5th Diet Coke we used 14 Mentos!


I like this picture for 3 reasons: My mom's face in the background, Carson's face, and Carson's friend, Lee, running away on all fours!


Here's a precious picture of Parker and dad enjoying the fun


My parents were distraught that all those Mentos left in the bottom of the Diet Coke bottles were going to waste, so my dad fished them out and ate them!

Thanksgiving Point, Dinosaur Museum

Since Shandy didn't go into labor on Labor Day, we decided to do something fun. So, we (mom, dad, Carson, Parker, and I) drove to Thanksgiving Point and hooked up with Curtis and Shandy. Sam stayed behind to help his brother-in-law with a sprinkler system.

There were so many cool exhibits and so many things to see! One of the best areas was an Erosion Table. It's a big trough full of water, sand, and buried plastic dinosaurs. Carson had so much fun making dams, volcanos, and in general, a big mess!



I think it's funny that I can look at Parker wrong, and he'll cry, but standing in front of a HUGE shark makes him smile? Where have I gone wrong??



At the end of our museum tour, Carson and Parker got to dig for dinosaur skeletons. It was so fun watching the kids with their brushes, carefully removing the sand from around the "bones". If you live in the area and haven't been to this museum, you really should check it out, it was a great way to entertain two energetic boys for a couple of hours!

Katydid!

Labor Day was a beautiful day here in West Jordan. The first thing I did was check my garage door to see if it had been vandalized ***I'll tell that story in a sec.
I decided to pull some weeds out of one of my flowerbeds. Parker came with me to keep me company and make sure I continued to perfect my multi-tasking skillzz.

As I started to pull those dang dandelions, I noticed that one of the leaves on my Mums was moving really weird. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a katydid. I picked it up and put it on the cement curbing and pointed it out to Parker. It was really cute, Parker LOVED the katydid. He put his nose right up to the bug and 'oohed' and 'aawwed' for at least 45 minutes! Precious!




I put the katydid back in the bush, and seriously, I couldn't find it after about 1 minute. It seriously blended in so good! Parker kept saying "katydid go?" He was pretty distraught until I convinced him to climb into his treehouse. I took this picture because I couldn't believe how funny his ears looked with the morning sun shining through them! I love his big ears!!!



***Vandalized Garage Door story:
Saturday morning Sam and I were heading to breakfast with some friends. We backed out of our garage, closed the garage door, and were surprised to be greeted with big, painted, red letters that said "We sh_ _ on ur house" BUT, the swear word was NOT censored! Sam promptly walked around the house to see if this person did what they said they did, but found nothing. I couldn't very well leave this printed on our door, so I ran inside to try and find something that would remove the paint. Aha! I found a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. It removed the paint immediately. A police officer drove by and stopped at our house. He had been informed that a street sign close to our house had been vandalized with red paint as well. I handed him a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and told him it would take it right off! He was very appreciative and as we drove away I saw him cleaning the sign and it was coming off quite nicely. I think I should write the Mr. Clean company and tell them what happened! Maybe I'll get a year's supply of magic erasers. :)